


Flustered

by Skittery



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, First Kiss Video AU, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-29
Updated: 2014-09-29
Packaged: 2018-02-19 04:59:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2375477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skittery/pseuds/Skittery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another couple is called.  Jack idly focuses on one of the people standing across the room, a boy who looks maybe a little younger than he is, who seems, like him, to be both completely confident in and completely uncomfortable with the whole situation.  The other boy looks around the room, his eyes sweeping over Jack, and then the people around him jostle him and he stumbles slightly to one side and Jack can see that he’s leaning on a small and well-worn crutch.  Jack stares at the crutch, not because he hasn’t seen something like it before – as a resident of the streets, he has, and much worse– but because he can’t understand how he didn’t notice it immediately; he can’t fathom why he would focus in on this random boy and notice his stance, and where his eyes flit, and the confident if uncertain look on his face, and not notice the crutch he holds prominently.  A moment and the boy looks up and meets Jack’s eyes across the room, and Jack feels the room narrow, like the walls are sliding inward, and a heat spreads through him like a drug, and he jerks his gaze away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flustered

**Author's Note:**

> I had to look up what the first kiss video WAS, so i did my best with this, just a little jack/crutchie first meeting au fluff...

Jack Kelly does not get flustered easily. He keeps his cool, his face blank while still projecting to the world a satisfied smile, like everything is going his way, even when it isn’t. Standing against one wall of the large, open waiting room, Jack watches the messy crowd forming in front of the opposite wall, wondering which one of those people he’ll be paired up with.

Jack waits for his name to be called by a woman with a clipboard and an accent rivaling his own, waits as she calls other names and they file two by two into a smaller room where he knows there is a camera and a microphone and a filmmaker and god knows how many other people. 

And a paycheck, Jack reminds himself. Jack has been on his own for almost as long as he can remember, and he learned a long time ago that opportunities like this one don’t come along every day, and short but strange jobs often pay the best. Jack stretches his hands in his pockets and waits. 

Another couple is called. Jack idly focuses on one of the people standing across the room, a boy who looks maybe a little younger than he is, who seems, like him, to be both completely confident in and completely uncomfortable with the whole situation. The other boy looks around the room, his eyes sweeping over Jack, and then the people around him jostle him and he stumbles slightly to one side and Jack can see that he’s leaning on a small and well-worn crutch. Jack stares at the crutch, not because he hasn’t seen something like it before – as a resident of the streets, he has, and much worse– but because he can’t understand how he didn’t notice it immediately; he can’t fathom why he would focus in on this random boy and notice his stance, and where his eyes flit, and the confident if uncertain look on his face, and not notice the crutch he holds prominently. A moment and the boy looks up and meets Jack’s eyes across the room, and Jack feels the room narrow, like the walls are sliding inward, and a heat spreads through him like a drug, and he jerks his gaze away. When he looks back, the boy has focused elsewhere.

The woman with the clipboard comes back twice before she finally calls Jack’s name, and he almost doesn’t hear it because he’s still puzzling out his own reactions to the boy across the room. He certainly doesn’t hear the other name she calls, and so when he hurriedly reaches the door, he’s surprised to see the boy with the crutch coming up after him.

They shuffle awkwardly through the door and as they enter the fabled second room, the boy smiles up at Jack with this unabashedly brilliant smile that takes Jack completely off guard, like the ground has suddenly shifted. Jack can feel his own face trying to break into a smile, even as he tries to keep it controlled, keep his cool.  
There is a grey backdrop and a camera and at least a few people, although Jack will never be able to recall how many people were actually in the room. He’ll also never be able to say how large the room was, although he seems to remember it being small, or what exactly they were told, or what color the industrial carpeting on the floor was, or what time it was or if there was even a clock in the room. He only remembers them looking sheepishly at each other, standing in front of the dull grey poly-curtain in front of the camera; he only remembers shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and the pounding of his pulse in his ears, and the strangest feeling of incredible weightlessness mixed incoherently with that of unbearable pressure the moment that the boy with the crutch steps in front of him and their eyes meet, really meet, not even two feet between them and the invisible barrier that sat between the two sides of the waiting room dissolved in this new space.

Jack knows when the camera is rolling, because everyone gets quiet, and there isn’t really a script for this, or anything, just a specific outcome to build towards. Jack swallows loudly, and hopes it isn’t visible or audible in the recording; it suddenly occurs to him that people will see this, and he has to break away from this boy’s gaze and gain back some of his bravado or he’ll be a laughing stock and no way is any money worth losing the respect he’s spent his whole life working to earn. 

Jack looks down at his feet, regaining some composure, and when he looks back up he knows his usual crooked smile is back in place, and that he appears to be in control of the situation again. He holds his right hand out awkwardly to the other boy, uncertain if he’s being rude. 

“I’m Jack,” he says, hoping that he sounds self-assured. 

The boy gamely lifts his hand off his crutch to shake. “I know,” he replies, and Jack can hear hope and delight in his voice, two emotions that Jack doesn’t hear too often. “Didn’t you catch mine?”

Jack panics (oh no what the hell was this kid’s name why wasn’t I listening better how’s this gonna look not great I’ll tell ya that) and lands on glib. “Crutchie, right?”

The boy’s face flits between confused and concerned and amused for a few moments, and Jack realizes that he might have just said something terrible, and then the boy smiles again, maybe a little more knowingly than before. He looks at the camera and then back at Jack, his face reddening a little, then he laughs and says: “You can call me whatever you want.”

Jack feels his own neck flush, and hopes his shirt collar hides it. “Okay, Crutchie,” He smiles awkwardly through his words, “how d’ya wanna do this?”

Crutchie cocks his head to the side, “I guess we just do it, right?”

No one answers him, but they both seem to take the silence as an affirmation, and take a step towards each other, closing the already minuscule gap between them. Jack feels like he has lead in his shoes, but somehow he moves forward until they are so close they’re almost touching, and Jack can feel goose bumps spreading up his arms and over the back of his neck, and his breathing becomes shallower as anticipation and adrenaline take over and they’re close enough that he can hear Crutchie’s breathing in tandem with his own, and with similar lack of depth, and he looks down into eyes that swallow him into deep pools that aren’t dark and haunted like so many of the eyes he’s looked into throughout his life, but bright and full of promise. 

Crutchie moves his free hand so that it’s resting on Jack’s arm, as though they’re preparing for some ridiculous formal dance. For a second, it hangs in the air between them, and then, as though on a count of three, they both lean towards each other and close the tiny gap that still remained and seemingly all of a sudden their lips are touching and Jack can feel that Crutchie’s lips are soft and yet strong, and while the kiss starts out very innocent and with barely any pressure at all, neither of them pull away soon enough, and it becomes more insistent; less like a randomly assigned kiss-a-stranger-and-make-some-money situation and more like two people left to their own devices needing physical contact and drinking each other in like this moment might be their only chance. 

Jack presses his lips more firmly against Crutchie’s, and his hands move of their own accord, one wrapping tightly around Crutchie’s waist at the hip, sliding past the motionless crutch, and the other reaching out to gently cradle Crutchie’s face, his thumb running over Crutchie’s cheekbones as the pressure of the kiss finally diminishes and they pull very slightly away from each other. 

Jack realizes that at some point, his eyes closed, and he opens them again, watching Crutchie’s face, his own eyes still closed, as it curls into a wondrous smile and his slow breaths catch slightly in his throat. For a second, Jack forgets that they are in a room, with a camera, and a backdrop, and other people, and he watches Crutchie open his eyes, and they smile at each other, like two people sharing a secret they didn’t even realize they held, and he runs his thumb across Crutchie’s cheek once more before they pull apart and the room and the camera and the people whoosh back into existence. Both of them look sheepishly at every place except the camera and each other, but neither can wipe the silly smile off their face.

Suddenly, it seems, the woman with the clipboard is back, and she’s pressing some paper they have to sign into their hands and thanking them for their time and pushing them out a third door into a hallway where a man is waiting to collect the signed papers but which is otherwise deserted. Papers signed, the two of them start to walk down the hallway, keeping stride with each other but not talking, their shoes pounding like anvils in the silence of the hallway. They stop at the door to the outside world, wanting to talk but not entirely sure what to say. 

Jack stumbles onto words first. “You know I wasn’t makin’ fun, right, when I called you Crutchie?”

Crutchie laughs lightly. “I know. I kinda like it.”

Jack feels his pulse speed up at that, even though it could easily mean nothing. He puts his hands in his pockets, antsy in spite of the fact that he feels he could stand here talking to this boy for hours if he didn’t know that another randomly assigned couple would come and interrupt them in a few moments. 

“So, either that was the most successful random pairing in the history of anything, or you’ll call me, huh?” Crutchie takes out a pen and grabs Jack’s arm before Jack even realizes what is happening, and begins studiously writing a number on Jack’s skin in thin black ink. 

Jack is taken aback, although he knows that he will, of course, call, and even though the pen across his skin itches and he knows that people will see it and ask, he doesn’t mind, not really, not when he knows what Crutchie looks like when he opens his eyes and it’s just a short leap to imagining what he would look like every morning waking up next to Jack. 

Crutchie finishes the inscription, grins at Jack, and then pulls him down slightly to give him a fast kiss on the cheek. Crutchie pulls away and pushes open the door, leaving a burning spot on Jack’s cheek where his lips touched, like Jack’s nerves are screaming. Jack puts an un-self-conscious hand to his cheek and watches as Crutchie walks down the sidewalk, knowing that he is missing the opportunity to run after him but unable to do anything but stand dumbly at the door. 

Jack knows that he will call the number written on his skin. He knows that they will go out and that they will stare into each other’s eyes and it will still mean something even without the anticipation and the adrenaline created by this experience, and that they will kiss again and it will be even better because they’ll be alone. Jack knows all of this and yet he is filled with nervous energy, his hand stuck to his cheek as he stands like a statue staring at the space where Crutchie had been just a few moments before.

Jack Kelly doesn’t get flustered easily, until the day he meets Crutchie.


End file.
